Spruance, Raymond Ames.

Spruance, Raymond Ames, born 03-07-1886 in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Alexander and Annie Spruance. After his birth, Annie returned to her family in Indianapolis, Indiana with her son. Spruance received his education there, including at the prestigious Shortridge High School A famous schoolboy there was Frank James Anderson,  the first African-American sheriff of Marion County, Indiana, IHSWCA Hall of Fame wrestler, class of 1956. While a student at Shortridge High School, he was a member of the wrestling team, and became an indiana high school athletic association state champion, and was inducted into the IHSWCA Hall of Fame in 1990. Following graduation from high school in 1956, he enlisted in the United States Navy Shore Patrol, serving until 1959, .Aswel the WW1 and WW2 Brigadier General Maurice Edwin Shearer as a Marine Corps major, the officer who reported from Belleau Wood in France on 26-01-1918 that, “Woods now United States Marine Corps entirely.”

Frank James Anderson, died 13-06-2021 (age 78) in Roseville, Warren County, Illinois, USA. Brigadier General Maurice Edwin Shearer 26-06-1953 (age 73) in Volusia County, Florida, USA

Raymond Spruance then trained in electronics and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1906 and received further education in electrical engineering a few years later. His seagoing career was extensive, including command of five destroyers and the battleship Mississippi . Spruance also held several engineering, intelligence, staff and Naval War College positions up to the 1940s. In 1940-41, he was in command of the Tenth Naval District and Caribbena Sea Frontier. In the first months of World War II in the Pacific, Rear Admiral Spruance commanded a cruiser division. In the first months of World War II in the Pacific, Spruance commanded the four heavy cruisers and support ships of Cruiser Division Five from his flagship, the heavy cruiser USS Northampton. His division was an element of the task force built around the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise  He led Task Force 16, with two aircraft carriers, during the Battle of Midway in early June. His decisions during that action were important to its outcome, which changed the course of the war with Japan. After the Midway battle, he became Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas and later was Deputy Commander in Chief. In mid-1943, he was given command of the Central Pacific Force, which became the Fifth Fleet    “The Big Blue Fleet” in April 1944. The Fifth Fleet was initially established from Central Pacific Force under the command of Spruance. The ships of the Fifth Fleet also formed the basis of the Third Fleet, which was the designation of the “Big Blue Fleet” when under the command of Admiral William F. Halsey

While holding that command in 1943-45, with USS Indianapolis as his usual flagship, Spruance, here with Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz,

  directed the campaigns that captured the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and defeated the Japanese fleet in the June 1944 Battle of Philippine Sea. Admiral Spruance held command of the Pacific Fleet in late 1945 and early 1946. He then served as President of the Naval War College until retiring from the Navy in July 1948. In 1952-55, he was Ambassador to the Philippines.

Death and burial ground of Spruance, Raymond Ames.

    Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance died at Pebble Beach, California, on 13-12-1969, old age 83 and is buried on the Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, Francisco, Section Plot: C-1, 3.  His wife, Margaret Dean (1888–1985), is buried alongside him, as are Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, his longtime friend Admiral Richmond Kelly “Terrible”Turner,

and Admiral Charles Andrews Lockwood, an arrangement made by all of them while living.